A Study of the Quality of Health Care Services in Dhaka City

Abstract

In Bangladesh, there are a lot of government and private community hospitals to serve quality health care service to the people. But due to rapid increasing population, it is difficult to ensure quality health care service to the entire community people. It is important to understand how the quality of services provided by private and public hospitals is perceived by the clients. Very little is known about how the customers access health-care service quality or satisfaction and select hospitals to receive health care services in Bangladesh, especially in Dhaka city. Therefore, the present research was conducted to assess the existing health care services of private and public hospitals, to identify why government policies could not improve the quality of health care service of public hospitals and how to improve the quality of health care service. The findings of the research revealed that more than 50% clients were not satisfied with the health policy.

Respondents were more satisfied with the private hospital in terms of behavior of employees (72%), sincerity and willingness of employees (50%), and appearance of the employee (49%) as compared to public hospitals. It also exposed that two-third of respondents were unsatisfied with the physical facilities of the public hospitals. Similarly, one-half of clients (52%) were agreed to pay tips in public hospitals. In this study, it revealed that three-fourth of clients (75%) agreed with the planning, management and monitoring of hospitals, more than two-third (71%) agreed that doctors needed training, almost two-third of clients (62%) were agreed to coordinate between hospital administration and doctors.

The research also identified that the present health care service can be improved by involving investment from rich people and NGOs (68%), modernization of existing hospitals (90%) and involvement of mass media (90%). The present study revealed that there is still a gap between the services of public and private hospitals in case of health care service and existing health care policy undertaken. The findings of the present research will help the government of Bangladesh to amend the existing health policy and it will also help to reduce the gap between the service of public and private hospitals.

Finally, this finings helps the government to improve the health care services in Bangladesh, especially in Dhaka City and ultimately people of Bangladesh will get quality health services.